David Bowie found out his cancer was terminal just "three months" before he died

David Bowie: The Last Five Years - airing on BBC Two tomorrow (7 January) - suggests that the musician didn't learn his cancer was terminal until just "three months" before his death. According to the documentary, he found out his treatment was to stop while filming the music video for "Lazarus".

David Bowie released Blackstar on 8 January last year to coincide with his 69th birthday and died two days later. His final album has long been viewed as a parting gift from a cultural icon who impacted so many peoples lives.

“I still don’t know if he started making Blackstar before he knew he was ill, or after,” documentary director Francis Whately told The Guardian. "People are so desperate for Blackstar to be this parting gift that Bowie made for the world when he knew he was dying but I think it’s simplistic to think that. There is more ambiguity there than people want to acknowledge. I don’t think he knew he was going to die."

Whately goes on to add that "he must have known there was a chance he wasn’t going to recover, so, to do an album with a certain amount of ambiguity in it, is Bowie playing the cat and mouse game that he always played."

A follow up to Whately’s 2013 film David Bowie: Five Years, David Bowie: The Last Five Years covers the final years of the musician's life, including the making of The Next Day, Blackstar, and Bowie's only stage musical Lazarus.